Basket, Table, Door, Window, Mirror, Rug [verso] 1974

Editor: Okay, next up we have "Basket, Table, Door, Window, Mirror, Rug" created in 1974 by Richard Artschwager. It's a pencil drawing. My first thought is… dizzying! It feels like a jumbled still life in the process of being constructed. What do you make of it? Curator: Dizzying is a fine word! It reminds me of trying to recall a dream, how fragmented the memories can be, like a scattering of domestic objects vying for attention in the same psychic space. Imagine this room not as a physical place, but as a theater of the mind. Do you get that sense of the stage at all? Editor: I do, especially the way the objects seem to be floating and intersecting without clear grounding. What’s the effect of showing all these familiar things in this almost chaotic arrangement? Curator: Well, Artschwager was fascinated with the idea of how we perceive space and objects. He often took ordinary items and presented them in a way that forced you to really *see* them, and perhaps to question their assumed roles in our lives. He throws the "real" into sharp relief. Is it really so orderly, so organized, our space and our lives? Editor: So it’s a nudge towards noticing the everyday… Curator: Exactly. He’s pulling the rug out from under our feet, pun intended, encouraging us to see the poetry hidden in the mundane, the dream within the waking life, or to put it another way, “Art is anything you can get away with.” –Marshall McLuhan. What are we "getting away" with if not awareness? Editor: That’s really interesting, framing it as a call to be more present. I’ll definitely look at his work differently now! Curator: Wonderful! It’s pieces like this that remind me that art isn’t just about what's on the surface, but about what it invites us to consider. I myself must pause and be introspective and look at Art's challenge to our complacency.